We both took sips while maintaining eye contact, as if in a trance or on a dare. Hal said, “May I continue? May I actually tell you about my wife?”

“Of course,” I said, but the W word seared me, so I went into journalist mode, walls up, ears primed. Big sip.

Hal said his marriage had ended years ago. His wife struggled with manic-depressive illness. She had a top-notch psychiatrist. She was on medication. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

I listened. Hal kept talking. I held onto my glass of wine. More sips.

He explained how they’d been through counseling and marriage encounter weekends at church, and how both Hal and his wife had been unkind. Had grown apart. Both of them were unhappy. Audrey (what a name, I’d always liked that name) had agreed to separate, live separate lives, but stay married. Until the youngest reached eighteen.

“Eighteen? That’s six years from now,” I said, because it didn’t make any sense.

“I know.” He took a long sip of water and gulped. “And we’d divorce sooner if either of us wanted to remarry,” he added, “but that hasn’t happened yet.” He winked, and we sat with that hanging in the air for a second or two.

I smiled. “Do the kids know about your arrangement?”

“Oh, yes. It’s impossible to hide. Kids pick up on everything, anyway,” he said, grabbing a piece of bread and reaching for the butter.

I watched him trying to spread it, his long knife pushing the too-hard patty into doughy craters on his slice of French bread, and eating the thing even though the butter hadn’t melted. He looked at me as he took a bite and smiled. He had a beauty mark near his temple on the left side, and crow’s-feet from years of sincerity.

“So tell me about you,” he said, still chewing and gently wiping his mouth with the black cloth napkin the waiter had earlier swapped out for the white when he saw Hal and I were both wearing dark colors.

“Tell you about me?” I said, considering where to start. Audrey was still on my mind, and I wondered what it would be like to live with a bipolar family member. I knew about having a mother with health issues and possible Alzheimer’s, but I’d already moved out when the worst of those symptoms began.

Our filet mignon arrived, and we both took a deep breath as the servers set down our plates. “Careful, they’re hot,” they said, and it was a nice diversion from the Audrey chronicles. Hungry, we dug in with pleasure. We sat there, savoring the meal together and sipping our drinks, just letting it all sink in. I had so many questions. I thought about taking out my notepad.